It was always known what Venus looked like. Ever since the first telescopes, we glanced at the planet and saw a blue, green, and white marble staring back at us. What was not known with 100% certainty until we sent men into space was that Earth looked the same.

It was in fact a decade after the "space race" began, before man started to seriously look at Venus. Probes landed on the planet shows an atmosphere of 12% oxygen, 2% argon, and 86% nitrogen. The Atmosphere is also much thicker than found on earth, making this amount of oxygen breathable. The dense atmosphere circulates the heat on the planet, meaning no "seasons" could be detected, nor were there significant day-night temperature differences.

The photo that sparked the race to colonize Venus was taken in 1968, a snapshot in time.Earthrise.

Theories have existed for quite some time about the development of Venus. Not only does the planet rotate backwards but it rotates very slowly compared to earth, about once a week. As of 2011 the most accepted theory was that during the migration of Neptune to it's current orbit, that it caused other objects to shift position as well. A body from beyond the orbit of Neptune was sent hurtling towards Venus. Theory suggest that the inner most Cytherean (of Venus) moon came very close to impacting with the planet on at least 2 if not 3 occasions. The large dark patch on the inner side of said moon is used to back up this theory. It is unknown if the outer moon also came from here.

What is generally accepted is that from somewhere beyond Neptune, the 8th and last planet, that an object flew towards Venus. It is unknown what relation this object has with the two moon of Venus, Pluto and Charon.

Scientists place the time of this impact about the end of the late heavy bombardment, and the creation of Earth's Moon. This is based partly on the life found on Venus, which was estimated to be similar to Earth's Permian era, between 300 and 250 million years ago.

Each Cytherean day lasts about 225 earth days. Each Cytherean day is about 6 earth days.One Cytherean year lasts 36 Cytherean days nearly exactly (only a few microseconds off)

Each 9 days make up one Month. There are 4 months in a year on Venus. Each Cytherean month is ~56 earth days long. Months are named Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Days are named after moons, the days are: Charon, Pluto, Luna, Phobos, Deimos, Io, Titan, Miranda, and Triton.

Cytherean days are divided into 6 cycles. Each cycle is similar to an earth day, being an hour or so longer, anyone living on Venus would have one wake-sleep cycle per one "cycle".

The first earth probe sent to Venus was Sputnik 7. Launched on February 4th 1961. Sadly, it failed on launch, and crashed back to earth later that month.

The first Earth probe that reached Venus was Venera 1, built by the Soviet Union. Launched on February 12th 1961, the probe conducted a fly-by on May 19th of that year. Sadly, the probe failed to function properly.

Two further failures occurred. American Mariner 1, and Soviet Sputnik 19.

Mariner 2 became the first probe to successfully make a flyby of the planet. Sadly, the cameras included did not operate properly. Radiometric temperature measurements were made, which confirmed earth-like temperatures. Mariner 2 is still in orbit of the planet as of 2011.

Venera 3 crashed on the planet, but after a failure.

Venera 4 provided the first successful atmospheric readings, showing the atmosphere to be unexpectedly denser than earth, that upper layers of the atmosphere contained a great deal of volcanic ash, and that Venus had more water than Earth.

Mariner 5, which originally was designed as a back up to Mariner 4, was retrofitted with extra Cameras. It returned the first high resolution photos of the planet, showing lush green continents, oceans and islands.

Venera 5 provided more data about the composition of Venus. While it "landed", the landing caused the probe to stop functioning.

Venera 6 became the first camera equipped probe to land. While the landing process failed, pictures were taken near the surface showing very earth-like trees. The probe was thought to have struck a tree on the way down, and landed on it's "side", preventing it's proper orientation for transmissions back to earth.

On June 20, 1969, Apollo 11 made the first manned landing on earth's moon.

On December 15th 1970, Venera 7 became the first probe to successfully land on Venus. Equipped with a camera, the sights that were beamed back to earth were, indeed, quite shocking...

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As of January 1 1972, nations that have launched probes into space include the USA, and the USSR. In 1962 Canada built it's own satellite, and became the third country to build something that ended up in space (other than the major 2). Earlier in the same year, the UK became the first to operate one. Italy joined in 1964. France became the first to launch it using it's own launch vehicle. In 1970, Japan and China built and launched their own satellites. The UK finally launched and designed their own vessel in 1971.

First off, even if our Pluto and Charon are this timeline's moons of Venus, it is highly unlikely that they would be named Pluto and Charon. Assuming that they aren't discovered until Galileo starts to scan the sky with his telescope, then one possible pair of names would be Lucifer and Vesper, which are the Latin names for the Morning Star and Evening Star respectively before the Ancients realized that they were the same celestial object.

« Last Edit: April 14, 2011, 03:41:06 pm by True Federalist »

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Quote from: Ignatius of Antioch

He that possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to bear his very silence. — Epistle to the Ephesians 3:21a

First off, even if our Pluto and Charon are this timeline's moons of Venus, it highly unlikely that they would be named Pluto and Charon. Assuming that they aren't discovered until Galileo starts to scan the sky with his telescope, then one possible pair of names would be Lucifer and Vesper, which are the Latin names for the Morning Star and Evening Star respectively before the Ancients realized that they were the same celestial object.

The Soviets decided to share the video on state TV, with a delay of about 12 hours.

The beginning of the first video showed the camera panning about. The landscape was lush and green. Trees, plants, bushes, grass. Suddenly, a GIANT insect appeared!!! 20 feet tall bugs?!! Come to destroy earth!!! No, turns out it was just a small bug crawling across the cam. It did confirm something, there was real life on Venus. Aliens. The video, which was an hour long, was cut from the most interesting parts of the past 12 hours. The cam also panned up to show flocks of birds, flying in V formation. The only other animal seen was a duck-like creature. Blue, 4 legs, 4 wings. The creature approached the probe and examined it. It looked like a duck, but acted like a cat. The Russians quickly found a name for it. The Russian word for Duck and Cat. A Duck-Cat or Utka-Koshka. This would become shortened to Utkosh Pronounced: Ut as in "oot" in boot. and Kosh as in "Kosh" in Kosher.

This would go a long way to changing attitudes on earth.

In the spring of 1971, the US sent Mariner 9 to Venus, an orbiter.

In the summer of 1971, the Soviets sent two probes, one landed on Pluto, the other on Charon.

By the end of 1971 the Soviets were planning a Cytherean Rover to fly on Venera 8. The entire year was full of more pictures from the soviet lander. No creatures as advanced as the Utkosh were spotted, and it was theorized that they were the most evolved and advanced creature on the planet.

Scientists quickly realized a major problem with putting people on Venus. While it was easy enough to land on Venus, due to the dense atmosphere and earth-like gravity, a huge rocket would be needed to lift off from Venus, larger than that on earth. Beyond that, scientists could not figure out how to get such a large-sized item out of earth's atmosphere, much less land it on Venus. The soviets planned on building moon-bases on Pluto and Charon while the problem was examined.